If they're not first, will they last?
If you put a caucus and a primary in a blender, you might get what Iowa Democrats now say they will do in January and February and March. The 2024 version of the newly-imagined caucuses — at least for Democrats — will get stretched out over three months. But Iowa Democrats still call it a caucus, like they called the former format that took one night (plus the time that it took to figure out which candidate earned the most support).
Here’s the condensed version of what’s changing for Iowa Democratic caucus goers:
Previously:
Registered Democrats gather at their designated caucus sites across the state by 7 o’clock on a pre-determined night (sometime between early January and early February), talk party politics and issues, divide into groups at different places in the room according to which presidential candidate they support, organizers see if the candidates have at least 15% support at that site to earn delegates, caucus goers realign and choose another candidate if their original choice didn’t earn at least 15%, more math ensues, volunteers relay final totals to the state party, the state party announces the results to the world that night (or early the next morning, or days later in the case of the 2020 caucus night debacle).
The new caucus/primary hybrid way:
Iowa Democrats will mail out presidential preference cards beginning on January 12, 2024 (instead of caucus goers meeting in person on caucus night to choose their presidential candidate). The party will announce the results on Super Tuesday, March 5th (instead of after party officials tally up results from caucus night).
Iowan Democrats will still gather on January 15th, which will be caucus night (It’s also caucus night for Republicans). Democrats will be doing the other party business on caucus night, which will get little to no media attention since they aren’t “picking a winner.”
But what about the part about mailing presidential preference cards to Iowans? Isn’t that too much like a primary? Won’t that tick off New Hampshire’s secretary of state, since his state plans to host the first primary? Perhaps not, according to Brianne Pfannensteil of the Des Moines Register. Brianne reports that Secretary of State David Scanlan called Iowa Democrats’ newest proposal, “a positive development.”
Why?
Why were all these changes necessary?
Iowa Democrats felt like they had no choice. Nearly every state has moved away from caucuses, instead relying on primaries (which can be easier and simpler for people to take part).
The Democratic National Committee decided that Iowa no longer deserved to hold the country’s first caucus or primary.
Joe Biden has fared terribly as a candidate in Iowa. So he wasn’t going to jump in to save Iowa after the 2020 caucus night tabulation disaster, especially as other Democrats pushed for more diverse states to get the privilege of holding their nominating contests earlier in the schedule.
Iowa Republicans (who hold the majority of seats in the legislature, along with the governor’s office) required in-person caucusing.
Iowa Democrats hope that by playing by the new DNC rules for 2024, they can somehow regain their first-in-the-nation status in 2028 (could be wishful thinking).
The question for the future will be how much Iowa’s relevance is diminished after previously leading off the presidential nominating process for the past half century. Other states now get to pass up Iowa. Right now, this is a state dominated by Republican politicians. How will Iowa Democrats recapture their national prominence when for the past decade, their irrelevance in their own state has grown?
(Dave Price is a native Midwesterner and Iowan by choice for the past 22 years. He has written two books on the uniqueness of presidential campaigns in Iowa).
Thanks for reading and please consider checking out other members of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, a group of independent writers across the state.
👍Semantics???
The national and state parties have had way to much influence in this simple caucas process we started out with. The failure of the last Presidential Caucas was largely on the State party for not testing the squirrely computer programs they figured would do the job. ( or they knew it would fail and what the National Party wanted?) I'm 73 years old and have followed this process from my mid twenties to present. Each time it changed a little bit, it changed much more the next time. In many cases making it "simplier" when in fact it only made things more confusing. No one was used to anything after a while because the way it was done was always changing! Even the county, district and state conventions were doing the same and the voters, who are the basis of the party, continued to lose their power to "rules". These "rules" stole their vote and their opinion. I well remember district conventions conviening on Saturday morning and not concluding until Monday morning! Going straight through the night, every issue was debated and many people would voice their opinion before votes were taken, even at 3 AM! Not anymore!
The caucas in it's most simple form would have developed into a small group forum, discussing issues and creating planks that reflected these issues had it stayed as it started out. It didn't take long before issue sheets showed up and a simple check mark would identify your catagory of issue, nothing beyond that! So each step along the way to the state convention began to be twisted into this policy makers toy, that allowed the policy makers to make the decisions that the delegates voted on, but had no real say in the creation! Changes were difficult when debate was also handled by the convention seated delegates in mass with a required number of seated delegates having to sign a petition to even bring up something for seated delegates to vote on to even debate! Soon Democratic conventions closed at the appointed hour and what had be ascribed as "Democratic" faded. They went the way of the oposition and relinguished Roosevelt democratic tactics. The Republicans will always win if it is simply a matter of money, and if you look around the Iowa legislature you will see just how true this is!